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Cells

When we get a splinter we usually just focus on the pain and trouble that it brings us. Through the computer and the Web, we can explore what our cells are doing to the splinter to help us, and how we can help these cells do their job. Let's follow the adventure of human cells versus a splinter of wood.

Go to Cells Alive at http://www.cellsalive.com. Click "OUCH" and begin reading. Use the facts you find there to answer these questions:

• What is every tissue in the body loaded with?
  
  
  
• Name the specialized cells among red cells.
  
  
  
• What signals to the white cells that there is damage to control?
  
  
  
• What do the white cells do to foreign microbes?
  
  
  

Return to the Cells Alive home page and click "Penicillin." Watch the movie.

• Describe how penicillin kills bacteria.
  
  
  

Click the link for Jack's "Bugs in the News."

• What URL are you at now?
  
  
  

Find and read What the heck is an antibiotic? and What the heck is penicillin?

• Why are you glad that these exist today?
  
  
  
  
• What do you think it was like before they existed?